DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — January was once again Porsche’s month in Daytona. Porsche Penske Motorsport’s Felipe Nasr was able to hold off Action Express Racing’s Jack Aitken to win the Rolex 24 at Daytona Sunday (Jan. 25) with co-drivers Julien Andlauer and Laurin Heinrich. It is the No. 7 Porsche (and Nasr’s) third straight Rolex 24 victory.
“Three in a row, it’s just a very special day – I dreamed of that,” Nasr said during the post-race press conference. “We had a battle all the way to the end with the [No.] 31. … I was just trying all I could because I know in these final hours everyone is using everything they have inside the car, and the Cadillac was a strong car.”
The margin of victory was 1.569 seconds over Action Express Racing’s Jack Aitken, Earl Bamber, Frederik Vesti and Connor Zilisch. BMW M Team WRT’s Robin Frijns, Rene Rast, Sheldon van der Linde and Dries Vanthoor were third. The No. 6 Porsche of Matt Campbell, Kevin Estre and Laurens Vanthoor faded to fourth late, while Meyer Shank Racing with Curb-Agajanian’s Kakunoshin Ohta, Alex Palou, Renger van der Zande and Nick Yelloly were fifth.
Van der Zande started from the pole, but almost immediately lost his advantage to Nasr. Behind him, a crash broke out when Era Motorsport’s Naveen Rao ran in the back of TDS Racing’s Tobias Lutke, triggering a chain reaction crash involving Phil Fayer and George Kurtz. Everyone continued, but Rao copped a two-minute penalty for causing it.
Shortly after the restart, Rennsport One’s Eric Zitza clipped the grass and spun exiting turn 1. He ended up broadsiding the tires protecting the blunt end of the wall separating the track from the pit exit warmup lane. Zitza was ok, but quite sore afterwards.
The scariest moment of the race occurred late in the third hour when AF Corse’s Dylan Murry spun in the Kink. He was then struck hard by the Porsche of Wright Motorsports’ Adam Adelson.
Murry walked away from the crash unhurt. Adelson ended up being taken to a local hospital for observation, but was released Saturday night. Wright Motorsports was out on the spot. AF Corse made repairs and briefly got back out, but chose to pull out shortly afterwards.
The Porsches dominated at the front of the field for the first three hours of the race. After that point, it was Action Express Racing and MSR’s No. 93 that were the primary competition. The MSR No. 93 was effectively eliminated from contention due to losing a wheel shortly after a stop at night while Ohta was driving.
What the race will be best remembered for is the fog. The weather had relatively humid all weekend and there was fog Saturday morning prior to the race. During the event, the fog started showing up around 7 p.m. ET
The visibility got gradually worse over time until IMSA officials threw the caution at 12:45 a.m. ET. What followed was a tedious several hours.
At after 7 a.m. ET, the skies finally cleared up enough for the race to resume. Heinrich was in the lead ahead of Kevin Magnussen. Estre was fourth, but quickly moved up to second.
The Penske Porsches ran one-two up until the final run of the race. Here, Aitken was able to beat Estre out of the pits and take second. With a slight straight-line speed advantage, he was able to run down Nasr for the lead.
Once there, a fierce battle developed. The two drivers fought hard for the position. With 15 minutes to go, Nasr got held up by a slower car in the Le Mans chicane, which allowed Aitken to get a run. Aitken tried to go to the inside entering turn 1 and Nasr nearly pushed him into the grass.
Nasr opened up a decent gap before Aitken made one last run in the closing laps. However, the tire wear got to him late, allowing Nasr to pull away for the win.
In LMP2, CrowdStrike Racing by APR looked to have a good chance at winning. However, they made their second-to-last pit stop too early. As a result, they couldn’t make it to the finish from there on one more stop.
Alex Quinn was forced to pit with 15 minutes to go for fuel. Inter Europol Competition’s Nick Cassidy also had to pit as well. A quick short-fill allowed Quinn to keep the class lead. From there, he was able to hold on to take the class win.
The margin of victory was 5.59 seconds over Inter Europol Competition’s Tom Dillmann, Antonio Felix da Costa, Bijoy Garg and Jeremy Clarke. Cassidy, Giorgio Kolovos, Nolan Siegel and Jakub Smiechowski were third, followed by United Autosports’ Paul di Resta, Dan Goldburg, Rasmus Lindh and Gregoire Saucy. AO Racing’s Dane Cameron, Jonny Edgar, PJ Hyett and Christian Rasmussen were fifth.
GTD Pro was dominated for much of the race by the two Corvette Racing by Pratt Miller Motorsports Chevrolet Corvette Z06 GT3.Rs. However, bad luck took both out of the hunt for the win.
The No. 3 with Antonio Garcia driving suffered a rear suspension failure in the 20th hour. A 51 minute stay in the garage dropped him to a 13th-place finish in class.
The No. 4 was right up there in the hunt until Nico Varrone was nudged off the road exiting West Bend in the 22nd hour. That dropped him back to seventh.
Ultimately, the race came down to a duel between Paul Miller Racing’s Dan Harper and 75 Express’ Maro Engel. Engel ran as hard as he could to chase down Harper, but could not prevent the second-year racer from taking the win with Connor de Phillippi, Max Hesse and Neil Verhagen.
The margin of victory was 2.223 seconds over 75 Express’ Maro Engel, Kenny Habul, Chaz Mostert and Will Power. Winward Racing’s Jason Hart, Maxime Martin, Scott Noble and Luca Stolz were third, then Corvette Racing by Pratt Miller Motorsports’ Nicky Catsburg, Tommy Milner and Nico Varrone. Manthey Racing’s Klaus Bachler, Ricardo Feller, Ayhancan Guven and Thomas Preining finished fifth in “Grello.”
The GTD class was topsy-turvy for much of the race. Any one of about eight or 10 teams could have legitimately won at one point in the race.
Some of the teams fell out of the hunt with mechanical issues, like DXDT Racing. A gearbox issue ended their race.
Turner Motorsport lost their chance at victory due to back-to-back drive-through penalties. One was for causing a spin, while the other was due to a crewmember being inappropriately attired during a stop.
Late in the race, the battle was going to be between Magnus Racing’s Nicki Thiim and The Heart of Racing’s Mattia Drudi. With 75 minutes to go, Thiim was able to take the lead away from Drudi and maintained a small advantage.
In the final round of stops, Winward Racing’s Philip Ellis was able to jump Drudi to move up to second. What followed was a rather rough battle at times.
With 19 minutes to go, Ellis was able to get past Thiim under braking for the Le Mans chicane to take the lead. This was not without some casual contact and nearly squeezing Thiim into the SAFER Barrier at one point.
Thiim gave chase over the final 19 minutes and attempted multiple moves. However, he fell off in the final minutes, allowing Ellis to take the win with Lucas Auer, Indy Dontje and Russell Ward. It is the team’s third Rolex 24 class win in the last four years.
Ellis just managed to hold on by 1.367 seconds over Thiim, John Potter, Spencer Pumpelly and Madison Snow. Drudi, Eduardo Barrichello, Tom Gamble and Zacharie Robichon were third, then 13 Autosport’s Matt Bell, Orey Fidani, Ben Green and Lars Kern in their Corvette. AF Corse’s Ferrari for Antonio Fuoco, Simon Mann, Tommaso Mosca and Lilou Wadoux finished fifth.
IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship Rolex 24 at Daytona Unofficial Results
Next up for WeatherTech teams is another really difficult event, the Mobil 1 12 Hours of Sebring at Sebring International Raceway. That race will be March 21 and will air exclusively on Peacock. A schedule for the weekend has not been announced as of yet.
Phil Allaway has three primary roles at Frontstretch. He's the manager of the Frontstretch email newsletter that publishes Monday-Friday and occasionally on weekends. He keeps TV broadcasters honest with weekly editions of Couch Potato Tuesday and serves as the Frontstretch Sports Car racing editor.
Outside of Frontstretch, Phil is the press officer for Lebanon Valley Speedway in West Lebanon, N.Y. He covers all the action on the high-banked dirt track from regular DIRTcar Modified racing to occasional visits from touring series such as the Super DIRTcar Series.
Thanks for a great recap, Phil. There was quite a bit to encapsulate here!
Other than the remarkably long (and unavoidable) caution due to fog causing near zero visibility, what a great race.
Top overall honors were in doubt to the very end, and but for Aitken deciding discretion was the better part of valor, he could have easily piled up his car along with Nasr’s. It seemed Nasr decided the only way to win was to force Aitken into a position of wreck them both with the end in sight, or back off and hope for another opportunity, which never came. I felt both raced honorably but aggressively, though Aitken may disagree here, and I can’t blame him if this is the case.
The GTD finish was wild, and I wonder whether Thiim regrets not forcing the issue with Ellis. I was mildly surprised IMSA didn’t penalize Ellis for aggressive driving, with what appeared to be a side draft gone wrong nearly wiping both cars out at 170mph. Were I Thiim, all bets would have been off after that. Thiim had multiple opportunities to return the favor to Ellis. It seems contact would have been justified, and I would have forced IMSA to penalize me and explain why Ellis didn’t get a penalty for the earlier instances of contact.
Either way, amazing race, with so much in question down to the final lap. And this without any scheduled cautions to create entertainment. How NASCAR can get IMSA so right (NASCAR owns IMSA), and their core NASCAR products so wrong continues to mystify me.